


I've Got You

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [154]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Avengers Tower, Comfort, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Loki (Marvel), Pre-Relationship, Reader-Insert, Stark Tower, Stress Relief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26827741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Loki looks on as you slip into despair over a spilled mug of tea. But then he knows it’s not really about the tea, is it?
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [154]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 12
Kudos: 210





	I've Got You

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe this one is a little bit more autobiographical than my usual Lullabies? My husband broke one of my (many, many) mugs earlier this week and maybe I had to hide myself away and cry my face off because it was just the final straw. Things suck and it’s hard to see any real, actionable way that little people like us can do anything about it, but maybe Loki’s out there keeping an eye on us. Do what you can.

He hadn’t meant to do it.

In a way, surely, he wasn’t the one to do it at all. It was Thor. It was always Thor. If it wasn’t his loud excitement, it was his booming anger, or—perhaps most infuriating of all—his childish whininess. That whininess, and the pouting, were all that Loki could think of in the streets with his brother when Midgardian women swarmed them and begged to take pictures with the great and wonderous god. Would they fawn over him the way they did if they knew about the hundred-year strop Thor had thrown late in his adolescence? Surely not.

But it was not a temper tantrum which put him into the position he was in today, it was merely his exuberance. Loki was standing beside you at the counter. You’d been in the process of making tea, and perhaps seeing that made him suddenly desire some of his own. He’d just finished pouring the boiling water into both of your mugs when Thor arrived. Upon seeing Loki out in a common space in the Tower, threw his arm around his shoulder and jerked him off-balance. Even Loki’s grace could do little to save him from Thor’s strength as he threw him almost directly into you. Only moments ago, you’d picked up your mug to curl your hands around it as you often did, but, upon impact, it slipped out of your hands and hurtled towards the floor. Loki righted himself quickly and made a move in hopes of snatching it out of the air. He was rewarded for his efforts only with scalding pain as the water splashed onto his skin.

“Fantastic work, brother,” Loki snapped. He was aware of his audience—there were several other members of the team there in the kitchen with him—but some combination of pain and embarrassment made it impossible to soften his tone. “Brilliantly done. Are you alright?” The latter bit, of course, was directed at you. You stood as though frozen, staring down at the mess at your feet. 

But his words seemed to rouse you a bit. You nodded without looking up at him and then sprang into action, pulling a cloth from a nearby drawer to sop up the mess. Loki wanted to reach for you. He wanted to kneel across the puddle from you and take the rag out of your hands so you wouldn’t risk cutting yourself on one of the many shards of glass. It unnerved him a bit, realizing that he cared so much about such a tiny injury, but he pushed the thought aside. 

Your movements were almost robotic, even at the frenzied pace you used. He watched you gather up a large portion of the broken mug inside the rag and then stand up to shake the bits into the nearby garbage bin, only to come back and begin again. It occurred to him, then, that he could have taken out a rag of his own to help you while you were gone. 

It was hard to miss the way your fingers trembled as you worked. Midgardian bodies were so delicate. Had he hurt you more than you were letting on? By now he knew you well enough to know that you certainly weren’t trembling out of fear of Loki himself—the two of you had shared plenty enough bowls of popcorn and intimate conversations in darkened sitting rooms for him to know _that_. Crouching there in front of you, Loki still wanted desperately to take your hands. The best he could manage, however, was reaching to gather up some of the larger remaining pieces of ceramic.

Thor was apologizing. His voice droned on in the background while you worked, and while Loki...stared. Your face was guarded, but your lips weren’t tight in the way they got when you were angry. If anything, you looked sad. He recognized it in the way you refused to look at anybody and in the way that your forehead creased just slightly. Once, you met his eyes for the briefest of moments and he thought he saw tears threatening to spill over, but you looked away quickly and then turned your back to him so you could rinse out the rag. 

“It’s okay, Thor. I know you didn’t mean it.” To anyone else, you sounded perfectly normal. You weren’t quite laughing, but your voice was at least light and friendly. But Loki knew better. He knew the way your words caught in your throat. He could hear the slightest tremble in your voice. Your reaction was clearly about something more than this mug, or even this tea, but he just couldn’t figure it out. “I mean it. Stop apologizing. But also stop throwing Loki around like he’s a ragdoll. He’s a _person_.”

The irritation in your words was undeniable this time, and someone—Barton?—sitting at the table nearby gave a quiet snort. 

“You’re absolutely right. Truly, I am sorry. Are you hurt?” Thor reached out to take your wrists in his, turning your hands over as though to inspect them for cuts or burns. Loki had to choke back an unexpected...indignance at the sight of it. Thor’s hands easily dwarfed yours, much the way that Loki’s would, and it made him long to reach out to pull you closer to him. Which was ridiculous. He held no claim over you.

Still, he couldn’t shake his sense of relief when you slipped easily out of his brother’s grasp and maneuvered around him to head for the door. You were moving quickly. You wanted to get out of here. Without thinking about it, Loki followed close behind. _Let the others watch_ , he thought to himself. _Let them_ _whisper_. The glittering hollowness in your eyes was haunting him.

***

He caught up with you easily. You were standing in front of the elevator bay, arms crossed tightly against your midsection as though to hold yourself together. For a moment, you were too caught up in your own thoughts to notice him, so when you finally did, you flinched away with a gasp. If you were feeling more like yourself, he knew that the sound would be immediately followed by a quiet laugh and, if he was lucky, perhaps even a gentle slap to his chest or his shoulder. But you remained largely as you were.

“Hey, Loki. I’m really sorry, I didn’t ask. Are _you_ okay?” 

“Of course. I’m not the one who nearly got bowled over. Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?” Why did he suddenly long to make eye contact with you? But you kept your eyes fixed on the screen above the elevator doors. Something like a smile flickered across your face—like a smile, only...less. 

“I’m stronger than you give me credit for. You couldn’t hurt me if you tried.” 

Just then, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. When you stepped inside, Loki got the feeling that you wanted to be left alone, but he ignored that feeling and joined you anyway. You didn’t seem surprised when he made no move to hit a button of his own. You let out a slow breath, like you were trying to retain control of your temper. When, exactly, had he become so familiar with the intricacies of your body language? And why didn’t that bother him more than it did?

“I’d never try to hurt you.” Now it was his turn to keep his eyes fixed on the place above the elevator doors. His words were true enough, but there was something about the air between you that made them sound a little too serious—not nearly as light-hearted or teasing as he had intended them. He felt your eyes on his face, and that only strengthened his resolve not to look at you. Whatever was happening inside your head, he knew that he was pushing things merely by accompanying you to wherever you were going. The least he could do was let you look at him without intruding on that.

The both of you got to your floor, and without a word you allowed him to follow you into your rooms. He’d been here before. He’d sat with you in your small sitting room while you worked, or as the two of you read. He’d even, on the rare occasion, helped you to bed after you stayed up too long drinking with the others after one of Stark’s parties or when you’d seemed just a little too wobbly with sleep after a movie night for Loki to allow you to go back alone. The point is, he’d been here a lot, but he’d never felt such a strange atmosphere here with you. 

“You’re _sure_ you’re alright?” He wasn’t in the habit of repeating himself like that, but one didn’t need to be the God of Lies to recognize the way you looked. This time, he allowed himself to reach out one hand towards you. But he didn’t touch you. He allowed you the room to decide whether to close the distance.

You just looked down at his hand for several long moments. Before long, he watched something like realization dawn in your eyes, followed immediately by the furrowing of your brow. You did reach out, then, but only to close your fingers gently around his wrist so you could pull his hand up a little closer to your face.

“I burned you,” you whispered. “Oh my god, look at you...” You trailed the fingertips of your other hand gently along the edges of the splotchy burn. Before Loki could figure out how to respond, or figure out why he liked the feeling of your touch so much, you sniffled quietly and a tear splashed against his hand. 

It seemed to happen all at once. You crumpled there before his eyes, your shoulders curling inward as though in a defensive position. He heard you gasp, then whimper, before you let go of him to crush your hands against your mouth. But you couldn’t muffle the sounds of the sobs that wracked through you and made you shudder. It was like you were frozen there in front of him even as heartbreak ripped through you. You ducked your head lower and lower, apparently desperate to hide yourself from his gaze, but you did not turn away from him. Something in his chest squeezed, hard, and he pulled you in close, crushing you against his body.

This was not about his burns. Likely it wasn’t even about your mug, or your tea. It was finally beginning to click for him, that you were dealing with something so much bigger than any of those little things. He knew, in an academic sort of way, that Midgardians did things like this sometimes: that they held everything in in an attempt to keep things under control until one last little thing shattered the facade they tried to uphold. He’d never seen anything like this in person, and he’d certainly never imagined it happening to you, but he understood. 

So he held you. You ground your face against his chest and clutched at his waist, and he stroked your back. He scolded himself harshly for relishing your arms around him, but hid it by holding himself in place so he could support you. You were sobbing, your shoulders heaving in his arms. Your body temperature was rising—you felt so warm against him, too warm, but he wasn’t sure whether it would be wise to allow some of his Aesir to drop so he could try to cool you. He lowered his chin to press his face against the top of your head and he whispered what he hoped were comforting words while he held you tightly and caressed your back. _Shh, it’s alright. You’re safe, love. I’ve got you._

After a while, perhaps when you were just beginning to regain some control over your body, he heard you start to speak. You were apologizing to him. Your words were muffled somewhat by the way you continued to hide your face against his chest, but, to him, they were unmistakable. He could hear the sheer misery in your voice, and some embarrassment beside. All he did was press one hand to the back of your neck so he could keep holding you close. You let him.

“I’m not— _God_ , this is… Loki, I’m not crying over _tea_ , okay? This isn’t about the tea.” Slowly, slowly, you were coming back to yourself enough to form complete sentences again. He didn’t like that your primary concern was explaining himself to him, but he smiled nonetheless.

“Of course I know that.” He squeezed the back of your neck, hoping to soothe some of the tension that he could feel in your muscles. You still weren’t trying to get away from him. Was it wrong of him to appreciate that, given what was going on? Was he being improper, trying to memorize the feeling of your body even as you dealt with some kind of crisis? “I know you’re crying at the sight of my wounds. Your concern is precious to me, my love, but it is also wholly unnecessary, you must know that.” 

His words had the desired effect: he heard a watery laugh escape your lips. Without truly meaning to, he pressed a kiss to the top of your head. Maybe you didn’t notice. Maybe you were still too caught up in recovering from all of this. He could only hope that you wouldn’t take issue with these liberties he was taking with you. He should have more self-control than this.

If you noticed the kiss, you didn’t let on. You kept standing there with your head against his chest and your arms tight around his waist. Your body temperature was beginning to drop, beginning to return to normal, and a tiny shiver ran through you. He held you a little tighter. 

“Everything sucks,” you said. “That’s all it is. Things are terrifying. I don’t know how we can make it out of this. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” The sound of your voice gnawed at him. You sounded exhausted. In your words, he could hear the incredible weight that you carried on your shoulders—the weight of concern, of worrying about others, of hopelessness and uncertainty. That was what had drawn him to you in the first place: your compassion. His younger self would surely have ridiculed you for caring, but now that he was older, he knew how difficult it was to care. It gave you such strength, worrying about people other than yourself, and until this very moment it had never occurred to him to wonder about the cost. He held you still tighter, suddenly desperate to try to shield you from the world that tormented you. 

“It’s going to be alright.” He sounded a little more certain than he felt, but there was something about holding you that made him uncharacteristically optimistic. “People like you, you’re going to keep things going. As dark as things get, there are so many people like you who care so much. You make others strong. As long as there are people like you, things cannot possibly stay so bad.”

You gave another quiet laugh, but this one sounded a little more skeptical. He let it pass. You weren’t the type to accept kind words easily. To be honest, he knew the feeling. But now was not the time to try to force you to believe what he said. For now, for as long as you continued to let him hold you, he was willing to believe the words for you, and show you the truth of them with his actions. You had yet to release him, which he took as permission to hold you as well. He began to rock gently from one side to the other, and he heard the way your breathing evened out. He kissed the top of your head again, more obviously this time, and did not miss the peaceful sigh that slipped out of your mouth.

Your world was dark, incredibly so, and your future was uncertain. But, right now, he had you. And he wasn’t going to let you go.


End file.
